Method of producing buttons from australian ivory-nuts.



shape.

UNITED STATES PATENT ()FFIOE.

HERRMANN GUSTAV LEITHAUSER, OF SOHMOLLN, GERMANY, ASSIGNOR TO EDUARDJULIUS CONN, OF HAMBURG, GERMANY.

METHOD OF PRODUCING BUTTON$ FROM AUSTRALIAN IVORY-NUTS.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Aug. 28, 1906.

Application filed April 2, 1906. Serial No. 309,566-

5 Duchy of Saxe-Altenburg, Germany, have invented a certain new anduseful Improved Method of Producing Buttons from Australian Ivory-Nuts,of which the following is a specification.

This invention relates to the production of buttons from Australianivory-nuts, such as Tahiti or Fiji nuts, from certain Sago-trees (Sagasamicamm) of the Solomon, Friendly, Fiji, and Caroline Islands, and hasfor its ob- I 5 ject to do away with drawbacks heretofore experienced inthe manufacture of buttons therefrom.

20 sawing the same to shapecould not be made use of in making smallbuttons of disk shape, for the reason that the buttons would notretaintheir shape, but became twisted or bent, or they would otherwise shrinkout of To avoid this, it has been proposed to cut out cylindrical bodiesfrom the nuts and to make buttons therefrom; but this is a veryroundabout and tedious way and has the further disadvantage of givinga'great o amount of waste.

According to the'present invention the said nuts are so treated andworked upon that durable unchangeable round buttons of even very smallthickness can be produced.

The nuts are sawed into disks corresponding to the thickness of thebutton-disks to be producedsay about five to six millimeters. Thesedisks are boiled in substances capable of extracting fat or greaseforin- 0 stance, in solutions of soda. When the superfluous fatty mattersare expelled from the nut-disks, they are dried in hot air. The resultof such treatment is that the outer cells, which are considerably largerthan the inner cells, shrink to substantially the same size as the innercells of the nut, so that a transverse slice of such nut after treatmentwill be substantially of the same density throughout and any alterationin form after the button is made will be uniform throughout.

I believe that I am the first to treat nuts of the Sagas amicarum torender their internal structure substantially uniform, and thus permitslices across the nut to be used throughout their extent for makingbuttons, which by reason of their uniform structure will not warp.

From the disks when sufficiently freed from fat and dried, and therebyhaving attained a uniform structure, buttons can be cut by means of twocircular cutters rotating in opposite directions to each other, wherebyboth faces obtain the desired shape corresponding to the shape of thecutters.

The finishing of the buttons (perforating, polishing, bleaching,coloring, &c.) can be carried out in any known manner, preferably asfollows: I

When the buttons are bored or perforated and sifted, they are smoothedor ground in rotating drums (rattling-mills) by means offinely-pulverized pumice-stone and then highly polished by the usualpolishing means, (chalk and tripoli mixed with oil.)

I claim- In the method of making buttons from Australian nuts, cuttingthe nuts into slices or-disks and extracting fatty matters therefrom andrendering their structure substantially uniform throughout;

HERRMANN GUSTAV LEITHAUSER.

Witnesses:

M. NAUMANN, CHARLES Nnunn.

